Zachary Taylor ~ November 24, 1784 - July 9, 1850

12th President, 1849-1850
Zachary Taylor sites visited:
Taylor's boyhood home, known as Springfield, can be found at 5608 Apache Road in Louisville, Kentucky. It's a private residence so there are no tours.
He has a bust in the Virginia State Capitol.
A fort in Key West was named after him.
His statue joins the other Presidents in the City of Presidents, Rapid City, South Dakota.
Taylor is buried in what is now the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.
His grave is easy to spot because a large monument stands next to it.
Taylor was first entombed here, behind his current spot.
Today he rests here with his wife, Margaret.
Taylor's body was exhumed in 1991 but tested negative for arsenic poisoning.

Zachary Taylor was not a politician, had no formal education, and considered the military his career. He fought in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and the Mexican War. He became a national hero in 1847 in the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War. That propelled him to the Whig nomination for president and "Old Rough and Ready" won in a three-way race.
Taylor was a slave owner but opposed expansion of slavery to new states and territories (By the 1840s, he owned many plantations on which his 100 or so slaves worked.)
Taylor was the first president who had served in no prior elected office, was the first president to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal more than once, and was also the first president to use the term "First Lady".
The second president to die in office, his 16 months in office places him third in shortest presidential terms (after William Harrison and James Garfield).
But now he resides peacefully alongside other veterans.
One last piece of Taylor trivia: his daughter Sarah Knox married Jefferson Davis in 1835 but she died three months later. He married again and became President of the Confederacy in 1861. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, along with Presidents Tyler and Monroe.

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